As a relationship coach who has been branded “The Passion Consultant” and who has been investigating romance dynamics for years, I was intrigued by the article which also sparked my sense of fair play. If women are calling men to meet our divine potential, then we men, in turn, need to be calling you women to meet yours.

In the spirit then of a two-way dialogue, here is my offering to women, 10 bold invitations that might just spark the feminine heart into action­—or fury. Bring it!

1. Don’t be afraid. Live your heart’s yearning and be authentic and free in your feminine. We men are ready for you to show up as you really are, to give up your shy girlishness and stand boldly and gorgeously in your full goddess expression. Shake the ground with your stride—without apology.

2. Give us back our business suits. For too long and for too many women, being in the business world has meant acting and competing like men. It grew out of the Women’s Rights era back in the sixties, when women declared their place in the world, burned their bras and took on roles previously held by men. Unfortunately, the pendulum swung far—these liberated women chose to not only burn their bras, they also took off their make-up, cut their hair short, minimized jewelry and put on business suits to be accepted in the business world. Women gave up their meek housewife personas and roared. However, the goddess—your essential feminine heart—was nowhere to be seen. It’s way past time for the goddess to show her face and her divine juiciness in the business world. It may well be the only thing that will save it.

3. Wear your goddess-hood proudly. You are a goddess. What does that look like to a man? The goddess is authentic, powerful, highly desirable and to be feared if doubted, crossed or ignored. She yearns from her core for the divine masculine to meet her on equal ground, and will behead us if we fall short. Like the Masculine Sword of Truth, your heart of compassion and grace is a powerful truth that cuts through the illusion and pretense around you.

From this place, how you dress, how you present, how you carry yourself becomes natural and flowing. Without our business suits, you have so many choices of how to show your heart, your gifts and your juiciness to us, to the world, to each other. You have incredible power—sexually, spiritually, physically and emotionally. You can shine all of that outwardly, authentically and naturally. Do it for yourself. Do it for your sisters. Do it for all of us.

4. We don’t speak goddess. Most men have not been educated in the language of women. As John Gray defined in Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus, we are virtually different species. It takes a relationship anthropologist to translate and attempt to understand the opposite sex. Meet us halfway in communication. Recognize that when you say, I’m fine, we don’t know which meaning you intend of the 300 plus versions you have on file. Goddesses communicate with each other almost telepathically, in nuance, in monosyllables or even with an imperceptible facial expression shift that can communicate enough information to fill a month’s worth of diary. And we men may not even catch that you said anything at all. I’m not kidding. Remember we are literal creatures.

5. Be our cheerleader and inspirer. Sometimes fighting the good fight and passionately following our mission and purpose can feel overwhelming, even for us warriors. Your touch, your encouragement, your belief in us inspires us one more time to be all that we can be. Your touch fills our hearts in a way that inspires us to love what we do and continue on.

6. We are not your Daddy. You probably have daddy issues. We are not your daddy. Get that clear. Forgive your father for whatever he did, or didn’t do. Projecting all your history with him onto us diminishes our ability to be with you in an openhearted way.

7. Let us feel you. If you truly want your sacred masculine to live his truth, don’t hold back your emotions and feelings. We know your storm will not destroy us. It may scare us. If we run, it is your best sign the man in front of you is not in his sacred masculine. Holding back your truth to be nice or to adjust your emotionality based on our less evident expression, keeps you apart from us. Be fully expressive. It brings you closer to us.

8. Be the ravishee. We men are simple beings, linear in thought and action. It is both our strength and our power. When we take you to love and ravish fully, let us! Be present. Be fully immersed and receptive to our passion. Don’t be thinking about what color to paint the ceiling, or getting your nails done. Be a willing participant. We do this for you.

9. Remind us not to fix you. We men are incredibly talented at solving problems. When you share your emotions, your upset with us, our natural and instinctive response is to figure out a solution, which is 99 percent of the time what you don’t want. Our instinct to fix overrides our recognition of your need to simply vent. Remind us, so we can let go of our tool-kit for a moment, and simply hold the space for you to be free. We both win.

10. Shine your light in public. You are magnificent, you are magical, you are the juiciness of life—and too often you only share it in your goddess circles, at out-of-town festivals and in the mirror. It’s past time for you to be authentic in every part of your life, particularly in public. The world absolutely yearns and is thirsty for the goddess to reveal her gifts and share her abundance. Our future cries out for the authentic and divine feminine. You are the healing agent this world needs and the healing agent we men need. Be generous with your light.

I entreat you women to let go of your smallness, of the judgments and rules you took on and to be free to be your divine authentic self.

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Barry Selby

Barry Selby is the Passion Consultant. He is an author, speaker, catalyst, change-agent and guide. His core values and passion are serving the world and individuals in having greater truth, conscious and inspiring relationships, and more purposeful lives. His new book 50 Ways To Love Your Lover is a powerful and enjoyable reference to improve your love life, your romance and your relationships, whether you are already in one or are single. His coaching and public events are places of joy, healing, transformation and inspiration. Find out more about him at his popular site TheLoveConfidant and on Facebook and Twitter.

Comments

I've been waiting for the men's response. I wasn't too far away with my initial thoughts, the first outweighing the others by light years …
Show me all of you – not just the parts you think I can handle
Don't try to fix or run from my vulnerability because it seems too deep to bear
Trust me to be a good father and don't try to make me do it your way
Let me be wrong, but let me know with respect and dignity, for I will fix it and find my way back to being right again
Trust me to take care of you, and take risks with me knowing I will never take risks with your safety

Hi i am just trying to post this so this is just a response to the article not a reply to ur comment, thanks i believe that this writing comes from a good place and i understand the concept. however it is still telling women how we need to behave and not addressing how the sacred masculine will look as the expANSION COMES AS LONG AS YOU KEEP TELLING WHAT YOU WANT THAT YOU DONT HAVE THERE WILL BE NO EXPAnsion in the sacred masculine. the goddes comes in many forms not just juicy all our goddess friend who enjoy the business suit we hail to them all us goddess warriors who enjoy the uniform(police ans firefighter etc) we hail to them and let it be known they are all tremendously juicy. no matter how u say the same thing that every magazine says how we behave but flower it with new age and spiritual mumbo jumbo wont fly when you my friend are addressing the goddess.

no matter how u say the same thing that every magazine says how we behave but flower it with new age and spiritual mumbo jumbo wont fly when you my friend are addressing the goddess. dont forget it took us goddess less than 100 years to realize what we had created (slavery, under the mans thumb not being able to work, being abused etc) was not what we wanted anymore so we had to take measures to swing the pendulum but i feel we have taken enough action and it is our time to rest meditate do yoga and enjoy our new creations as the sacred feminine. so we can hold space for the sacred masculine to take action and stand in their true divinity. I love you all!!! As a goddess i cant do or behave any way for you to know the sacred masculine needs to know and appreciate their divintiy in order for us to meet with our hearts. peace and blessings i hear ur call and hold sacred space sweet brothers

OK. I appreciate working within this spiritualistic idiom, but all this divine feminine and masculine wishful thinking is seeming more and more a way to depersonalize things we have difficulty understanding and accepting with ourselves. These rather hackneyed "do this don't do that" tomes are trying to create definitions and ideals for HUMAN behavior out of idealized pictures of what men and women "should" be like. It smacks of a pubescent superhero mentality with a white-wash of "mature" spiritual jargon. I don't feel an authentic entreaty to embrace anything in these articles so much as I see a passive aggressive desire to blame the opposite sex for not living up to one's egotistical desire to be serviced and worshipped in every way. Talk about projecting daddy and mommy issues onto the world. How about everybody work on embracing the "divine" feminine and masculine energies within each and every one of our HUMAN lives and drop the childish vanity of needing to see oneself constantly as a god or a goddess. It doesn't mean much to say that if we're ALL gods and goddesses now does it? I mean really… you can't see the "goddess" in a woman aping male dress codes and ego devices in the workplace? You'd rather have her all "juicy" behind her keyboard & monitor for your divine erotic amusement? Grow up already. Do you see the goddess in the toothless homeless woman tweaking her brains out and begging quarters on the street corner? Is she not juicy enough to meet your "divine feminine" standards? Maybe men when you can fully embrace the feminine within yourself you'll have compassion for all such expressions of spirits in female bodies. And women the same goes for you. Maybe if you fully embrace the masculine within yourself, you'll understand the burping, farting and belching armies of cigar smoking, ass chasing, women that make your life a living hell. To err is human. To forgive divine. Embrace it all brothers and sisters. Every bit of it.

i can embrace it.. all of it.. but i don't have to like it or pretend it turns me on.. i don't have to wear a suit of any kind
i don't have to stimulate the masculinity.. i am what i am.. and if there is any kind of needyness it is just neediness.. a bodily effect.. a godess would need something based on what? the eternal me that i am would need and desire a man to meet her based on what? we meet the divine in anybody on the street.. the farting toothless bump on the street also has its divine source not trying to fill your wish to meet in the reality of your liking..
the gods and godesses we all are.. embodied into the exploration of the emotions and realities of all kinds having likes dislikes hatred and desires.. divine is where we come from.. into the body to experience all other versions and levels of being in this realm.. and we go to next and next and next.. and it does not matter when or how..

I am a woman, not a goddess. I will not be trapped in made-up categories. This is restricting. I will not fulfill any role. I will not be a cheerleader, I will not a be a ravishee. I will not be worshipped. I will not follow any dress codes. I will live, feel and love according to who I am not according to what is expected of my gender. I expect my partner to do the same.

Why is this author referring to the Mars & Venus-book as if it was science? Why does he think that most woman have daddy issues? How dare he suggest that women need to be told how to act? By a man? This has to stop. And women shouldn't be telling men how to act either. Our responsibility as HUMAN BEINGS is to treat each another with respect.

This is really all very simple. People should be allowed to be who they are.

I did, and perhaps I should have pointed out that I find that article just as silly. Men and women should not expect each other to fit into any pre-prescribed roles. If the article above is supposed to be a tongue-in-cheek reply, loaded with irony – then fine – but it doesn't seem to be. That's why I'm criticising it. The article about the Divine Feminine deserves criticism, not a response that makes the same mistakes.

I agree, and find the desired goal outlined in this (and the previous) article to be very much an example of what leads to the crashing and burning of relationships, and the perception of self within those broken, jaded relationships. This article made me quite vexed.

AWESOME. We all know we have this potential, it's mostly just a matter of breaking through the walls that hold us back. I'll be reading this every morning to remind myself that the divine feminine is inside, wait to be set free.

Personally, I think it's time everyone got in touch with their inner "schmo," but for the sake of godly equivalence, I appreciate this piece.

"I'm a schmo, you're a schmo" may be the real foundation for sharing in Divine Greatness. If for no other reason that it reminds us that we can't ennoble ourselves – or make ourselves "god-like."

We can only follow some basic rules for compassion and enlightened service and with Grace, become Divine vessels that fill each other to the brim, and then, perhaps "beyond." We don't create this "gift" willfully — we simply make ourselves ready to receive it.

There is no role for our willful ego – however "enlightened" or "inspired" we may pretend ourselves to be.

Oh for the love of Pete… new age devine feminine/masculine whatever BS seems a thin veil to employ the very worst of gender stereotyping. Both articles could not be more condescending, heteronormative, and just depressing. The sexism is mind blowing. So this is how far we've come huh?

Yes, but the one that condescended to men was met with great acceptance and a massive readership (33K+) while the one inviting the feminine to take a similar look inside did not seem to generate the same level of interest. Hmmm.

I personally took major issue with it and voiced my opinion. I especially didn't like the invitation to rape. Can't believe shit like that can go viral. And I also don't see how lobbing more of the same crap at the wall gets us anywhere.

Yogateacher, may I suggest your repeated misrepresentation of my article as an invitation to rape, is crap? Please show me where rape is suggested. It's convenient how you also fail to acknowledge two things–1) your own bias based on some kind of history 2) that I responded (as author of A Call to the Sacred Masculine) in depth to you twice on the comments page, in which I pointed out your misunderstanding.

Actually you said you need to clariy what you meant in the future as some women interpreted your piece the way I did and i agree. As for your number 1) I need to acknowledge some kind of bias based on history….

Yep, but I hope you are not making assumptions about my personal history. It's human history which shapes my issue with it as that has been replete with the taking of and ravishing of women "without apology" and it's hasn't been so good for us. I said your piece feeds a dangerous fantasy and I stand behind that.

Someone referred/compared this verbal masterbation to superhero stories. I agree. Perhaps the author is stuck somewhere in his psyche at age 14 and still working things out. To me it seems dangerous and sad to claim expertise on subject matter so natural and personal.

I’d be curious to know the author’s personal relationship history? Please tell us why we should believe you. Have you come to your brilliant insights through a life spent in bliss experiencing ACTUAL relationships or are you simply writing a comic book.

Brilliant article, thanks Barry. Any and all moments of authenticity I've had in my close friendships or few intimate relationships with powerful women came when they were being themselves AND very feminine. They also frequently spoke of not being able to express their intellectual prowess, or indeed their need for male companionship, or shine their sexuality in public outside their support circles because of the labels ('too smart for her own good', 'slut') and other negative responses they had to endure, regardless of whether they lived in India, the US, or Europe. I find it perfectly normal to have a man be a man (as much as his nature allows) and a woman be a woman (ditto). Both can and should aspire to be whatever they can and want to be, so that both can bring their own balance of masculine and feminine power to the table and be separate but equal without bias or hindrance. What's wrong with that?

I thought I was going to give negative critique to E.J. for the first time in my life! Reading only half of the article, my thoughts were: "Why expect from someone else to be a goddess or god – isn't that silly? Like only dating super models, or s.thing. Saying 'You're a Goddess' is a different thing, it's personal, and shouldn't be compared to being a God, which by the way would imply that even above Earth is man in charge?"

But .. as I came back to the article, I read the rest, and so there we are. it's good.

Richard, how BEAUTIFULLY you responded to this post .. It was everything I was thinking (yet fuming too much to put into such eloquence). Archetypes are one thing, human reality is another. And in spiritual realms, I'm fed up with this depiction of the 'wild feminine' who is never celebrated by men as the full spectrum of the feminine (as Richard puts it, what about the toothless homeless woman begging on street corners .. is she not the embodiment of woman also? did we forget the crone in this analogy?). What pisses me off is the feminine is only ever portrayed as some 6 foot amazon woman with flowing amber hair atop a thoroughbred with leather amulets emulating Xena Warrior Princess and THIS only placates the male lust of women. It has nothing to do with the true divine heart of a woman. Until we stop separating the 'perfect' man and the 'perfect' woman based on physical sexuality, we will only ever spread divison of unattainable ideals, not what I hope we're trying to aim for which is oneness; complimentary unity; yin and yang of the one being; the *divinity* of men and women.

This man does not speak for me. I agree with some other posters that _his_ call to the divine feminine sounds like a description of a fantasy book cover. AND his list is too prescriptive – my sense was that the first list (for men) was more about how a man might best respond in order to support and interact with a powerful women as she rises up into a beautiful unknown. Selby wants a growing goddess to "let men be men." He wants to continue being a linear, sex-obsessed, appearance-focused, uncommunicative, fix-it master. That's not the path toward the divine masculine, if you ask me.

Besides, It turns out I can pursue and cultivate my own divine masculinity (and femininity) without some juicy, mini-skirted, ravishee to help me. I got it (sometimes), thanks.

I think the essence of this article is delicious. Maybe some of what Barry has said here hits against the grain for those who have lost touch with their natural being, if ever in touch with it. The call to divine feminine and masculine is a great way to re-balance. Every individual has his or her own style, own way of being. As an accomplished professional with multiple advanced degrees, this article resonates beautifully with me, and yet I will not give up the need for masculine energy while in certain business and life situations – I am a single mother, business and home owner, and so need to carry more of the masculine in order to keep 'it all' going. However, when I am the presence of a man, I truly appreciate when he is strong enough to let me be me, celebrate my sensual, free-spirited nature and make it safe & easy for me to just relax-in to the moment. That to me (relaxing-in to the moment) is the meaning of divine feminine.

Barry, where can I find a man like that? I don't think such a man even exists, except in my fantasies. Thanks for giving the gents their balls back! Now, where did I put my silk panties? Around my ankles? Hmmmm….

[…] gender issues was particularly interesting to me because I’m usually skeptical of the talk of “the divine feminine” that I hear in yoga circles. Yet Mary Lynn personified something that made that term feel real […]

[…] circle with a poem in hand not knowing what would come next. It was a weekend retreat honoring the Divine Feminine. Through the art of sacred drama a few brave souls embodied the Goddess aspect of […]

[…] gender issues was particularly interesting to me because I’m usually skeptical of the talk of “the divine feminine” that I hear in yoga circles. Yet Mary Lynn personified something that made that term feel real […]

i dont like wearing makeup, and i usually have to take "men" jobs otherwise i cant support myself. It would be nice to dress up, but "men" i encounter like to then make fun of me… call me names… and point out im not thin. it would be nice if I could find a man who appreciated me the way I am, but they all want to change me. I dont like sitting around, I like to work. I dont really know how to "dress up" because I was told by plenty "men" not to bother and its a waste of time. Maybe I'll meet a man, hopefully soon, that doesnt want to change me, that doesnt think I'm broken as a human being just because I like games, and dont wear cute little things, or makeup… Men today in my age group think in order to have a mate they just need to throw money at it, and possessions.. I would LOVE to meet a man this article hints at..

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